October 4 - Stoke Mandeville Stadium, the birthplace of Paralympic sport, will be hosting the finals of the Four Nations Disabled Badminton Championships in May 2011, it has been announced.



The Championships will be a series of tournaments, welcoming players from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales to play in a variety of categories including wheelchair users, standing disabled players, dwarf players and players with intellectual disabilities.

Denny Vettom, a member of Stoke Mandeville Stadium’s very own Phoenix Badminton Club, one of the favourites for the gold medal in the men’s W2 Wheelchair classification, said: "Stoke Mandeville is world famous as the birthplace of disability sport and home to the Paralympics.

"The Four Nations Disabled Badminton Championships is the first of its kind to be held at Stoke Mandeville Stadium and it will be a great opportunity to raise the profile of the sport and take it to a wider audience.

"I can’t wait to go for gold on my home court."

Tom Webster, the Disability Manager for Badminton England, is hoping that by then badminton will have been admitted onto the programme for the 2016 Rio Paralympics.

It is one of seven sports under consideration when the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) meets to decide in December.

Webster said: "I’m confident that we can make the 2011 English leg of the Four Nations Disabled Badminton Championships series the biggest and best yet.

With our clear Paralympic ambitions for Rio in 2016, Stoke Mandeville Stadium is the ideal place to take our sport and the Four Nations series, to the next level."

Ian Seabrook, Stoke Mandeville Stadium’s business development manager, said: "We are thrilled to be involved in such a fantastic sporting event and can’t wait to start welcoming players from across the British Isles and Ireland.

"Disabled badminton is a great way to enjoy sport and stay active and we hope that this Championship will encourage more people to come down to the Stadium and give it a go."

It is expected that more than 120 competitors will enter the Championship in May, looking to boost their ranking in the last domestic event of the season before the World Parabadminton Championships being held in Guatemala, Central America in Autumn 2011.